The Psychoanalytic Movement in the United States, 1906–1991

Abstract

Until the late 1960s, the history of the psychoanalytic movement was not a popular field of study. Of no interest to the historians of science, analysts themselves may have been inhibited by the tradition of analytic neutrality. Freud’s own writings on the movement1, 2 were highly selective and prompted by current controversies that required some special knowledge to be fully understood. Siegfried Bernfeld3, 4, 5 was the first analyst to study Freud’s childhood, education, and cultural background in order to understand the development of his theoretical thinking. Ernest Jones incorporated Bernfeld’s research in his semiofficial biography of Freud,6 which remains, despite its personal limitations and the additions of recent scholarship, remarkably readable and fair-minded.